Its hard coded to use 1024x768x16@60, so if your gfxcard doesn't support that res/refresh it will most likely die on startup.It also takes advantage of the experimental fullalpha(D3D) acceleration available on Windows.Older graphics cards will not support this feature, and you will end up getting 1fps instead of 60.But fear not, I have also done a version that doesn't use the Windows experimental stuff....

This version still requires fullscreen exclusive (and resolution changing ability), so it prolly wont work on linux or mac.

There is 1 more dependancy,Sfx use midi voices, so you need a midi soundbank installed to hear anything.The SDK comes with 1, the JRE does not. (though you may still get sfx if your soundcard has a midi soundbank of its own)

Oh and 1.4.x is required.(its been tested with 1.5, and there is a bug in the SE version (palletes of the images are corrupt))

btw, did I forget to mention that the entire thing fits in 4Kb

I'd be interested in what scores ppl manage to get,I think my high atm is 37kills Also, any setups that the game won't run on would be useful info too.

Gameplay Rules----------------1) Shoot the enemies.2) Dont get Shot by the enemies.3) Fly into the debris from dead enemies, to charge your shield.4) Dont fly into the enemies

I always use PNGs... but I've heard that there have been problems with the PNG ImageIO codec as well.. though "it works for me".

It really is too bad that such basic stuff gets broken. I mean if they could show that the image file doesn't follow the spec then fine it isn't really their bug.. but there are only so many variations possible with GIF.. you could test all of them easily.

I always use PNGs... but I've heard that there have been problems with the PNG ImageIO codec as well.. though "it works for me".

It really is too bad that such basic stuff gets broken. I mean if they could show that the image file doesn't follow the spec then fine it isn't really their bug.. but there are only so many variations possible with GIF.. you could test all of them easily.

Ah ha... due to a particularly brain dead bug in Mac fullscreen mode mouse buttons don't actually do anything while in full screen. I had forgotten about this - actually I hoped it had been fixed... sigh...

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btw, 1 more question - when in fullscreen exclusive mode on the mac, is the framerate vsync locked?

I'm not sure.

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ok, i've made 2 new versions of the game to see if it is a bug in the 16color gif codec.

PSP can just about be persuaded to save a png with alpha channel, but its not intuitive and requires some obscure tinkering. Its a pain to actually edit them as well, so I find it much easier just to keep the alpha as a separate greyscale image and merge them at load time.

for large files, that is true, but for very small files (the image is 21x50 16colors ) gif is better, it has a smaller overhead/gives better compression ratio)

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Ah ha... due to a particularly brain dead bug in Mac fullscreen mode mouse buttons don't actually do anything while in full screen. I had forgotten about this - actually I hoped it had been fixed... sigh...

I'm quickly coming to the opinion that Apple simply doesn't care about gaming on the Mac. They've gone through three major iterations of the 1.4 JVM (1.4.0, 1.4.1, 1.4.2) and to date have not even added proper support for VolatileImages. It seems like such a simple thing, and just about every Java developer is screaming for it. What's the problem already?

I'm quickly coming to the opinion that Apple simply doesn't care about gaming on the Mac. They've gone through three major iterations of the 1.4 JVM (1.4.0, 1.4.1, 1.4.2) and to date have not even added proper support for VolatileImages. It seems like such a simple thing, and just about every Java developer is screaming for it. What's the problem already?

It seems simple, but isn't. Apple has done 1.3.1, 1.4.1, and 1.4.2.

1.3.1 used 'Carbon' APIs to implement AWT. But Carbon is an older API used to transition from OS 9. What they really like you to use is 'Cocoa' an object oriented (Objective-C) API. When they went from 1.3.1 to 1.4.1 they ported all of their AWT code to use the Cocoa APIs instead of Carbon. That was a lot of work.. and they focused on getting done as opposed to making it fast. Then there is the impending release of 1.5 from Sun.. they needed to remain competitive and so they did 1.4.2 to catch up to Sun and they DID improve performance some with that release. But yes the priority was not on optimizing for games.. they just needed to get things working well for typical Java apps - which to date doesn't really include action games.

I file bugs with Apple whenever I find things that suck - such as their fullscreen mouse issues and graphics performance. I know they are aware of it. At this point though I'm betting they are hoping to use the OpenGL pipeline in 1.5, since their entire windowing system (Quartz Extreme) is based on OpenGL. I think because they already have OpenGL under the hood that integrating the hardware acceleration might have been a little more challenging to make it play nice with the rest of their system.. along the same lines as the initial Direct Draw problems that happened with Windows - where translucent windows and cursors would flicker like mad whenever a Java app painted.

I think it is mainly a case of limited resources. From the little communication I've seen from Apple I'm sure the Java guys there want a top notch implementation. But I also see that they don't seem to be making progress for gaming in general - their OpenGL implementation is a bit behind the times now - and for my laptop I can't update drivers myself, I must rely on Apple OS patches for that sort of thing.

As far as hardware acceleration being on or off. If you have 1.4 installed the hardware acceleration of 1.3.1 is disabled by default. In 1.4 they don't have hardware acceleration at all. They just haven't got around to doing it with the Cocoa AWT implementation.

As far as hardware acceleration being on or off. If you have 1.4 installed the hardware acceleration of 1.3.1 is disabled by default. In 1.4 they don't have hardware acceleration at all. They just haven't got around to doing it with the Cocoa AWT implementation.

Sorry, guess I'm being dense.. does this mean you can't even turn on the 1.3.1 hardware implementation in 1.4 ?

a) it isn't using page flipping in fullscreen.b) therefor, fullscreen won't be vsynced.c) it is backbuffering in main memory not vram.d) it can't even blit a single 800x600 rectangle from main memory to vram at 60fps :-/

thats a sweet game . it has some cool ways of doing things, like the event handling code i like it.. im finally into physics in science (lol in grade 10, so science is a mix of bio, chem and physics) so i will be able to understand more of your physics code.

Addition >

I can only run the SE version... i take it i cant run the non SE version because of my graphics card? i think you told me why already, but i forget if it was my card or drivers..? (dont laugh ) NVidia TNT 2 is that the problem?

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